This little human is growing inside my tummy. He's been growing for approximately five months and is due to make his debut around December 2, 2017. He's currently kicking me, which is how I know he's excited to be here. We already love him dearly.
Here's part of the story of Baby Smedley, the third:
Two early miscarriages in 2016 (the first at five weeks and the second at six) slowed my initial excitement for baby number three. It's painful to start planning and dreaming and loving just to have it all torn away in a few weeks. But this time things felt different. This time, God had a different plan.
One part of that plan was yoga. Sometime in January, Atkin and I attended the temple. Sitting in the celestial room, I felt overwhelmed by all I could or should be doing to increase my happiness. All the tools I've been given to improve life just stressed me out because I knew I couldn't do them all so happiness must be out of reach. When I took the problem to Heavenly Father, he gently told me to do yoga. Every day. And that was all. I tried to add to the list of things I should do and he said, No. Just do yoga. So I did. And I loved it. On March 16, I woke up inexplicably tired and thought, "I'm pregnant!" As the weeks passed, my initial instinct proved correct. As I faced the possibility of losing another baby, I used yoga to remain calm. Beyond the mental and emotional benefits of yoga, I believe that lowering my stress allowed my body to focus on producing the hormones my baby needed to stick around longer than a few weeks. I'm not a doctor and I believe that partly I miscarried last year because the timing wasn't right. But I also believe that God knew yoga would help my body hold on to this baby during those first sensitive weeks.
Those first few weeks I remember expressing gratitude for every day I remained pregnant. I tried hard to trust God's plan for us and to enjoy each day he gave me with this tiny person. I remember pleading with God for this child's life and telling him how much we wanted him/her to come to our family. One day as I talked with God, I felt reminded that I could trust his plan for me and his plan for this child (who is more his than mine, anyway). I felt a reassurance that this child's mortal experience would be longer than our first two had. I clung to this reassurance in the moments I felt inadequate or terrified of doing something that would jeopardize the pregnancy. I remember having a couple vivid dreams in which I miscarried and waking up afraid to go to the bathroom in case the dream proved real. Those dreams were awful. With the fear of miscarriage as my nearly constant friend during the first few months, it took time to let myself feel truly excited for this baby. Yet, every time I chose to dismiss fear, I felt confident that we'd get to meet this one. Now we've seen him and he moves all the time and he has a bedroom and a few random things people have given us and he's starting to feel more and more real all the time!
There are many ways I see that the timing for a baby is incredibly better this year than it was last year. I love the resources we are finding in St. Louis that we wouldn't have had in Utah. I love that my best friend is six weeks more pregnant than me so we get to go through a lot of it together. I love that we just bought a house (another long story about God taking care of us) and get to start a family there! Atkin and I still struggle a lot with this life thing, but I think we're more ready for a baby than we would have been a year ago. And there's people I'm grateful to have met in the past year that I wouldn't have met if I already had a baby.
In conclusion, the last several months have been an emotion journey (not to mention all the physical adventures of pregnancy!) But God has not left me comfortless. I love feeling Baby Smedley move and I love even more when Atkin feels him move. I love doing this adventure with Atkin. I certainly haven't maintained my daily gratitude for pregnancy. Sometimes it's a lot easier to complain. But when I really think about it, I'll gladly take all the discomfort, pain, inconvenience, and emotional rollercoastering if it means we get this baby. I am excited and grateful to be his mom.
We'll be hanging three stockings in our new house this year. As long as we get the present that fits into that tiny sock, I don't think we'll mind if Santa doesn't bring anything else.
